I had my second appointment yesterday. She mentioned needing to do a EKG, send off for a letter of medical necessity from my PCP, a psych clearance, pulmonologist (sp) clearance, and a chest xray (former smoker). I got a call today from the scheduler making sure that the doctors she was calling to set up appointments with were ok with me. So sounds like all of this will be done very soon! Also, if I end up having neck surgery, I will have to get a clearance from the neurosurgeon. Once my 6 months is up, they send stuff to insurance to approve, which can take up to 2 weeks, then to anesthesia to approve, then i schedule surgery. So 6 months or so, and it will hopefully be done!

Also, i picked up a used Fitbit Alta today for a few bucks. Unfortunately it doesn't monitor heart rate, but I'm an EMT so I have a bit of experience and tools to do that. lol

Edited October 18, 20196 yr by FireEMT710

It does go by quickly!

I thought my date would never get here, but it does go quickly! Back when I was an EMT in Iowa I also had neck surgery, I wish you the best in both of your upcoming journey's!

That's great!!! So you will have neck surgery first, then WLS 6 months from now? Best of luck to you!!!

I’m unsure if I will have neck surgery or not. On July 13, 2018 I hurt my neck catching a falling patient. (Not supposed to catch them, but it’s reflex....) from that time I couldn’t move my neck in any direction and it was stuck in a permanent looking down position. It improved, but still can’t turn my head to the right and my head is “crooked” while my neck was at it’s worse, the swelling caused the base of my skull, c1, and c2 to fuse together on the right side. According to the last doctor I saw with my local hospital through workers Comp, there’s nothing they can do. They can’t “unfuse “ it. Too risky. I asked for a referral to Barnes which is a research/teaching hospital. From what I understand they only take cases they think they can help, and they have scheduled me to see them on January 10. Will I gave neck surgery? I don’t know. I hope so because I want my neck fixed. But who knows? If they do surgery before I have the sleeve, I will need a letter of clearance from them. Neck surgery takes usually 3 months to fully recover. I don’t know if I would have to wait until I’ve fully recovered or what. A friend had his neck fused and his recovery time was 1 month to drive 3 to go back to work. But I think I would chose to have my neck fixed prior to anything else. It’s been a long time!